


Kiln Me Softly

by shrift



Series: Yuletide Fanworks [24]
Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Humor, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21599263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrift/pseuds/shrift
Summary: Yala liked working with her hands.
Relationships: Dutch | Yalena Yardeen/Johnny Jaqobis
Series: Yuletide Fanworks [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/104180
Comments: 16
Kudos: 38
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Kiln Me Softly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shirasade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirasade/gifts).



> Set at the end of Season 4 / beginning of Season 5.
> 
> Beta by [Nestra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nestra).

When Jaq left for the private school on Qresh, his absence loomed large. Their living areas seemed bigger without him underfoot taking up their space and attention. When she wasn’t at work at the Royale, Yala felt at loose ends, and so she started looking around for ways to fill time.

Maybe she also was looking for ways to avoid Johnny, a lot because they were still fighting about whether they should have used any means necessary to keep Jaq at home rather than let him be requisitioned by those Qreshi bastards, and a little bit because Johnny wouldn’t stop making fun of her for having “empty nest syndrome.”

“I’m not a gods-damned bird,” Yala said. “I’m simply taking a pottery class.”

Yala liked working with her hands. When she wasn’t working with her hands, she got restless. And when Yala got restless, things tended to escalate to property damage and the occasional concussion when the bad customer sugar came into play.

So: pottery.

Johnny tilted his head and squinted, “Yeah, forgive me if that sounds a little coo coo banana pants to me, sweetheart.”

“I don’t make fun of your hobbies,” Yala said.

“Lies! Slander!” Johnny protested as he changed out of his factory uniform. “Seriously, someone in Old Town is teaching a pottery class? What’s next, underwater basket weaving?”

Yala poked him in the chest. Hard. “I’m offended that you would even mention that hippie bullshit in our own home.”

After hunching his shoulders and grunting in pain, Johnny asked, “As opposed to someone else’s home?” He craned his neck and rubbed at his chest. “You didn’t break my skin with your nail, did you?”

“Of course not. And whatever happened to ‘happy wife, happy life’?”

Johnny’s voice was muffled as he tugged on a clean shirt. “Sounds vaguely familiar. But doesn’t it go, ‘happy husband, happy…’ Wait, does anything rhyme with husband?”

“Bludgeoned?” Yala suggested.

“Remember, violence isn’t the answer.”

Yala shrugged. “Sometimes it’s the answer.”

“I worry about you sometimes,” Johnny said with a sigh.

“I’ll worry when you don’t, darling,” Yala said with a smile.

Johnny smiled back. "Never gonna happen."

* * *

Yala brought home her first creation and presented it to Johnny by shoving it under his nose. “Look!”

Johnny’s eyes crossed briefly until he refocused. “I’m looking! What am I looking at?”

“I made this at my pottery class,” Yala said.

“It’s…nice?” Johnny said. He scrunched up his nose. “Okay, it’s hideous. I'm not even sure what that is.”

Yala tried very hard not to be offended. “It’s a mug. It doesn’t have to be pretty.”

“Oh, your _mug_ is pretty,” Johnny said flirtatiously.

“Your lack of appreciation is noted,” Yala said, and put her mug in a place of honor among their shabby dishware.

The next lesson, Yala was supposed to make a bowl. When she brought it home, Johnny’s facial expression almost made up for her utter failure at actually shaping clay into a bowl-like structure. Her pottery instructor, Jer, had applauded her effort, if not the end result.

“Did you make a dildo at pottery class? Is that even sanitary?”

“Probably not,” Yala mused, and made a mental note to ask some of the sexers she rented to, out of curiosity. They were a reliable source of information about what could or shouldn’t be used as a sex toy, and it wasn’t like there were any scientists around that she could ask.

“Wait, is that dildo for you or for me?” Johnny asked.

Yala raised her eyebrow and slapped Johnny’s ass. “Why don’t you build me a harness for it first, and then maybe you’ll find out?”

Johnny’s face was a perfect cross between intrigued and terrified. “Yes, ma’am.”

Yala had slightly better success making a vase, but it wasn’t like there were many flowers to be had in Westerley, so Johnny ended up using it to store various bits and bobs that would fit into its crooked mouth.

She tried candle holders, because scraping wax off the tables was a gods-damned pain in the ass, and also coasters, because she could train her customers to use coasters with a little bit of flirting and a lot of intimidation.

“That might be a little advanced,” Jer cautioned when she explained her plans.

“Are you saying you think I can’t do it?” Yala asked.

Jer backed away slowly with his hands up. “Hells no, that is not what I’m saying.”

Unfortunately, both the candle holders and the coasters were a little uneven and tended to roll. Gared accidentally destroyed three in one evening whenever he stood up and jostled the table even the slightest bit.

“Sorry,” Gared said sheepishly while Cindy giggled.

Yala shook her head. “Not your fault, you big lug.”

“I could pay for it,” Gared said. “Or get a Scarback to do a blessing?”

“Praise the trees!” Johnny said with a silly grin on his face as he hauled in a case of Hokk to a storage room.

“Shut up!” Yala called after him.

“Yes, dear!”

Gared shuffled nervously. “Yelling makes me uncomfortable.”

“What doesn’t make you uncomfortable?” Yala asked. She clocked a Killjoy sitting at a table nearby who looked far too interested in Gared’s answer.

“I don’t know. Puppies?” Gared offered. “They’re so cute. I just want to knit them something cozy.”

“No puppies on the menu, I’m afraid. Only hair of the dog that bit you,” Yala said.

* * *

One night after they closed up the Royale and cleaned the bar just enough so Yala wouldn’t be mad about the filth when she opened it up again the next morning, Johnny said, “I have something for you.”

“Three different gentleman tried that line on me already this evening,” she said. “I wasn’t interested then, and I’m not sure I’m interested now.”

Johnny raised his eyebrows. “Only three? That seems absurdly low.”

Yala took a moment to feel smug about that. “The regulars all know not to try anything on.”

Johnny led her into one of their storage spaces, and then pulled a blanket off a low table. “Ta da!”

He pulled a stool from underneath the table with his foot and looked at her expectantly.

Yala stared at the contraption. “What in the trees? You bought me a pottery wheel?”

“Correction: I made you a pottery wheel out of some scraps and these two guys,” Johnny said, wiggling his hands.

Touched, Yala said, “You know I also need a kiln, right?”

Johnny pointed his finger at her. “Okay. Now I know you also need a kiln. I will get right on that.”

“Johnny, this is too much.”

“On the contrary, this is in my best interest,” Johnny said. “If you have a wheel and a kiln, you can practice. And theoretically, if you practice, you’ll get better and I won’t have to look at lumpy monstrosities in the morning.”

“You’re a lumpy monstrosity and I have to look at you in the morning,” Yala said. 

She wasn’t a morning person, so technically everything in the J was a lumpy monstrosity while she was still groggy.

Johnny held up his hand. “Excuse you. I have the lithe body of a dancer.”

Yala’s answering snort was inelegant but not inaccurate.

She traced her hand around the pottery wheel for a moment, and considered the effort he’d put into both making it and hiding it from her. She was incredibly nosy and it couldn’t have been easy. “Thank you, Johnny.”

“Nothing but the best for my wife,” Johnny said.

“You know how much I hate being bad at things,” she said.

“Oh, I’m well aware,” Johnny said fondly.


End file.
